On view

Work as site. On the Emergence of Communicative Spaces

November 29. 2018 - October 2019

The location of a work is more than just the mere site of its installation or a dot on a map of the city. Artistic works transform their spatial surroundings and create places of their own. Situational spaces and passages come about, venues for assembly and interaction, refuges, heterotopies. With the aid of selected works from the history of the Skulptur Projekte, the archive presentation investigates the emergence of communicative spaces and the reciprocal relationship between the work and its location.

The exhibition comprises extensive documentation and archival material such as concepts, letters, drafts, drawings, historical photographs, and film footage.

Double Check. Michael Asher's Installation Münster (Caravan)

March 2017 - March 2018

Michael Asher (1943–2012) participated in all four editions of Skulptur Projekte between 1977 and 2007. With each invitation to Münster his response was to engage in an intensive artistic interaction with the city, the exhibition and his own work: a “double check” at ten-year intervals, as Asher called it. The 2017 presentation from the Skulptur ProjekteArchives’ shows historical documents and contemporary material as well as the artistic dialogue with Asher’s contributions by the photographer Alexander Rischer (*1968). For his series Münster. 19 Orte (Münster. 19 sites) from 2016 Rischer revisited the caravan’s respective locations in Asher’s project with an inquiring gaze. The result was a series of 19 photographs that not only examines the changes and particularities of these urban settings but also reflects on the Caravan project from a personal perspective.

In 1977 Asher was invited for the first time to take part with a project in Skulptur Ausstellung in Münster. He started by making a number of proposals such as planting trees or digging a tunnel, before deciding on installing a caravan, model: Hymer – Eriba Familia. Each week he parked it in a different location in and around Münster. Colourful paper stubs available in the museum foyer and his catalogue entry gave information on where the caravan was parked at any particular time.

In 1987, Skulptur Projekte was held for a second time. In response to being invited again, Asher once more submitted several proposals in the run-up to the exhibition. But he was particularly attracted by the possibility of re-installing his previous caravan work. For him, a crucial precondition for doing this was to hire exactly the same model of vehicle as the one in 1977, which he then intended to park in the same spots as he had done ten years earlier. If logistical reasons now proscribed using the same location the caravan was parked in a garage for that week.

From 1997 onwards, the caravan installation developed wide-reaching critical potential. By repeating the project yet again Asher was subverting the mechanisms of the art market system. The archives’ documents reveal to an increasing degree the difficulties and administrative effort incurred by his implementation of this work since in the meantime the caravan had become a vintage model.

The fourth edition of Skulptur Projekte in 2007 was marked by a generational shift. Together with Kasper König, the curatorial team was made up of Brigitte Franzen and Carina Plath. After it was decided that the caravan project should be carried out a fourth time, the documentation from the previous three editions served as a working basis for the project’s preparations. Due to insufficient exhibition permits and a reduced exhibition duration the caravan was now presented only rarely in public space, whereas the photographic documentation took up a considerable part of the exhibition catalogue. Its juxtaposed photographs revealed, in particular, how much the respective locations had changed over a period of three decades.

Mock-Up - The Hot Wire, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten Marl

Autonomous and profane. Skulptur Projekte on church-terrain

March 2016 - March 2017

With its exhibition Autonomous and profane. Skulptur Projekte on the terrain of the church the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur in Münster is launching a new serial exhibition format for the Skulptur Projekte Archives. This exhibition series will focus on individual artistic standpoints and examine them in detail in relation to an underlying thematic thread. The emphasis of the first exhibition lies on four projects with a critical approach to the church or symbols and sites linked to it. In this respect the church can serve as an architectural background and venue as well as the direct subject of artistic scrutiny.
One standpoint examined in this first exhibition is Katharina Fritsch’s Madonna from 1987. Fritsch placed her yellow reproduction of an effigy of the Our Lady of Lourdes in Salzstrasse, Münster’s main shopping street, between Karstadt department store and Dominican Church. The provocative choice of location between a department store and a church challenged the instrumentalisation of religious faith for commerce and kitsch. Both the course of the Madonna exhibition and the damage done to the figure are vividly documented with visual material, correspondence, filed memoranda and a series of newspaper articles. Furthermore a four-minute film from the LWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen will be screened, in particular showing the response of passers-by to the work.
In another standpoint, the exhibition considers Lothar Baumgarten’s Das gestürzte Kreuz / Drei Irrlichter (The Fallen Crucifix / Three Will-’o-the-Wisps) from 1987. Baumgarten’s project proposals centred on the period of Anabaptist Reformation. Inspired by the iconoclasm of 1534 he developed the proposal for Das gestürzte Kreuz for Überwasserkirche. But the church rejected his idea of constructing an abstract crucifix on the roof using dark tiles that would stand out against its surface. Baumgarten’s second proposal, however, was realised. Under the title Drei Irrlichter he installed three light bulbs inside the cages that are still attached to Lamberti Church. Photographs, sketches and plans for both project proposals are now on public display for the first time.
For Skulptur Projekte 1997 Ayşe Erkmen developed altogether four proposals, all of which involved Münster Cathedral. The focus of all four was on the cathedral’s west wing. After the first three had been rejected the fourth proposal, Sculptures on Air, found approval since it did not seek to use the grounds of the cathedral but the airspace above it.
A helicopter was used to fly sculptures in turns from the collection of the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur and bring them face to face with Münster Cathedral. Draft designs and computer simulations relating to the project will be shown, offering a survey of Erkman’s proposals, as well as photographs of the flying sculptures and correspondence about the project’s development.
The fourth standpoint shown in the exhibition is Isa Genzken’s contribution Ohne Titel (Untitled) for Skulptur Projekte 2007. For her project the artist chose the forecourt of Überwasserkirche, one of Münster’s oldest churches. Flanking the south façade she installed a series of objects which at first sight brought to mind children’s playtime and happy holidays. Yet what looked like a haphazard arrangement proved on closer inspection to be a metaphor for social injustice. Furthermore, especially in the light of the current refugee problem and in conjunction with the question of the right to asylum, Genzken’s exploration of power relations and spheres of influence between church, state and, is acutely topical. The project is documented with photographic material, including shots taken in Isa Genzken’s studio and brief accompanying notes by the artist. A precise selection of archival papers and documents illustrates the work’s intention and message.
In addition, on the first floor of the atrium the exhibition presents a recent interview with Father Thomas Frings who works in Münster. The interview spells out the church’s fundamental approach to art on its own terrain, also discussing specific artistic standpoints. Moreover, the exhibition includes a display of catalogues from all previous Skulptur Projekte exhibitions in Münster.